Somewhere down the line we replaced gags and jokes with "relatability" as a stand-in for humor

try this https://pirahxcx.neocities.org/comic-dump (click the image for more)

IMO, the average quality of webcomics was always low.

I find so many of them simply aren't clever or inspired. It's like there's a hidden punchline of "Amirite??" and they'll get laughs by attempting to be relatable.

Yep, exactly. The "AMIRITE!?!?" is exactly what I mean by "relatability" as a stand-in for humor.

Fr there were very few "good" ones back in the day.

Case in point: early SMBC

20 years ago had a daily list of comics to check, now I just load xkcd once or twice a year to catch up and that's it.

Almost exactly ditto, except add Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and the Perry Bible Fellowship to the check a couple times a year list for me.

Sure, but I feel like what floated to the top wasn't. XKCD, PBF, SMBC, even the narrative ongoings like Penny Arcade, 8bit Theater, Checkboard Nightmare and the like were never 100%, but regularly at least made strong attempts at humor, a noticeable difference to what floats to the top of the internet comic culture of today.

I agree that for every Penny-Arcade there were 2 Ctrl+Alt+Deletes. But now it feels like there are 100 CADs, 1000 comics somehow even worse in quality than that, and nobody is acknowledging the modern Penny-Arcades. (I'm not a huge PA fan actually I'm just using them as a useful instrument for the metaphor, please don't get too hung up on the specific title named)

Hey, valid take, I'll give you that.

Every single one of you wankers, from the OP to the people talking shite, just please...

https://piefed.social/post/491898

This is genuinely super awesome and I appreciate you sharing this.

Having said that, I don't understand piefed at all, I thought it was supposed to be like comparable to Lemmy; any idea why can't I find this post to save to my Lemmy? I can't locate it in either !eurographicnovels@piefed.social or your user post history.

Ugh, that's sad.

It works on desktop. Are you using an app to hit the Fediverse, perhaps?

Seinfeld and Friends have entered the chat

Desktop, firefox.

I don't/didn't really read webcomics when I was growing up, but there are a few artists I follow on Instagram who basically make webcomics as their posts on that app. They usually publish some kind of physical collection or book about them too.

There's one I follow called @m_snail_art that has a long-running story going on about frog- and snail-people in a fantasy world.

Oh. Same!

I tried to ping you just now from a Monty Python song post.

Did you get that?

Yes, but as I said there, I can reach that community fine, but I can't see the "WEBCOMIX!" post specifically

It is more about the shift in how the humor is presented than it going out of date. For example, therr are several comics that are just animations of someone having social anxiety with zero punch line. That's fine if that is what they are going for, but a well done comic being presented as a four panel set up and punchline seems like there should be some kind of humor to it and not just setup and I have social anxiety. There could be some subversion or twist or anything that makes it clever and not just I have social anxiety as the entire thing over and over again.

Yes, people with socisl anxiety should have a comic that appeals to them, but it is an example of leaving out the humor and just being relatable. Heck, if the characters did something over the top in the final panel instead of just stating their emotions it could be funny and not just an illustrated thing that happened.

Personally, I am genuinely glad people have relatable content, especially people from niche demographics who don't often get to feel included and represented. This is good. I am only remarking on and somewhat baffled by how this has become the new de facto norm. It's not about complaining about the new crop as it is lamenting the loss of a once a beloved artform that seems to have largely left the field; I'm not upset at the new occupants to have filled the vacated space, not directly at least.

And to be clear I'm not trying to suggest you're saying against any of that, just using your conversation as a opportunity to clarify my position ✌

The proliferation of computer tools has allowed many more people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t. I don’t think it’s just children or young people churning out cringe.

'pandering' is the word that comes to mind for me

It doesn't just seem to pervade webcomics. I think this is part of what makes memes so off-putting to me. Relatable is not a characteristic I pursue in media.

Probably because that post they linked was posted by their lemm.ee account, not their piefed.social account. The problem is that lemm.ee shut down; that Lemmy instance no longer exists. That post had federated to piefed.social at some point before lemm.ee shut down, so that is why it shows up there. But that post had not federated to lemmy.zip before then, so you are not able to find it by looking it up there now.

I like relatable in a funny way.

Ah, of course. Thank you!

There are great webcomics out there (try Ten Earth Shattering Blows, Dust 'N' Dread and Atomic Robo), but I think it's the relateable ones that are easiest to find because people tend to share them more.

It's a gif that works so well for this sub.

It's relevant to so many posts here.

!unix_surrealism@lemmy.sdf.org

Somewhere down the line we replaced gags and jokes with "relatability" as a stand-in for humor

Relatability has always been a pretty crucial component of comedy.

Do webcomics need to have gags? I'm very much enjoying Runaway to The Stars, a Sci-Fi story with a non-humanoid protagonist and a TON of world building. There are parallels to Worf, who is both the Son of Mogh, and alsothe son of Nikolai and Helena Rozhenko.

https://www.runawaytothestars.com/comic/rtts-page-1-and-2/